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Gooood afternoon AW!
Had a pretty spiffy day yesterday. Going to tell ya about it in a bit.
But first, the two month(ish) status check.
(Edited to reflect reports, and proper accounting for KENP)
The Thin Black Line Between Infernal and Divine went out on Kindle two months ago in July. It didn't go into the Kindle Select Program. It's sold 49 units since then, a few of those purchased from Great Britain, Denmark, Australia, and Canada. It has received 2 four-star reviews.
Keep an Ace In the Hole dropped a month ago. I put it in the Kindle Select program, and used 3 of the 5 available free days up front. It's netted 169 free downloads, and 344 KENP read. It's sold 43 copies so far It has recieved 7 reviews, 4 Four star, and 3 Five star.
All told, my efforts have cost me $0, and netted me $59-60.
Not bad for two months, that's about a buck a day.
If I were following pattern I'd be releasing something now... but the only thing I've got right now is my novel, and it's not done yet. Still need the final cover art, still need to finish the final draft, still need to okay that with my awesome volunteer editor. Time, time, time, no way around it.
Time and money. The novel's going to cost me money. We settled on the cover art price for $100, which is pretty fair for the awesome picture I'm getting and unambiguous rights. I'm going to get a custom ISBN through Createspace... The $10 option. As pointed out by folks above, and in other threads, I can always pick up a standard ISBN if I publish a new edition elsewhere.
Fortunately, it'll be a moot point for three months. Going by the exposure and reviews gained from choosing KS for "Ace", I should definitely enter the novel into Select right from the get-go. I'll use the opportunity to put "Thin Black Line" in there as well.
I need to learn how to do a package deal, book + PDF through Amazon. Is that even doable? Hrm.
All told though, things are humming along to plan. Finishing the novel and getting her rolling in Createspace will cost $110 plus the cost of a couple of early galleys to make sure that the formatting is correct. So my prior efforts with my smaller works has covered 50% of that cost, roughly. I have no doubt I'll make it back, if the pattern holds roughly the same.
Status: 85% Slower than I'd like, but progressing and within expectations.
Recommendation: Stay the course, Seiple!
Now then, on to my day!
So, a friend of mine's married to a local high school teacher. She runs the literature club there, and they put out a yearly journal. This year they've been looking at doing an e-book version, along with the print version.
My friend said "Hey, want to come in and tell them about your publishing experiences on Amazon?"
I said "Sounds fun, but I've only been doing this for a couple of months."
"Eh, it's more than they've done."
"Fair enough."
So I got to go in and meet with the club after school, and tell them about the research I'd done, and what I'd found, and what my experience had been like so far. Didn't present Amazon as the only option, also mentioned Nook Press, and Smashwords, and Lulu and the various pros and cons of each as I saw it. (There's others out there, I know, but I hadn't done much research on them and I admitted it.)
I gave them a toolkit, pretty much a bunch of URLs of the various useful and free websites and services that I'd used to get here. AbsoluteWrite was at the top of the list, natch. Critique Circle was a close second, and a free file conversion site (for making ebook files to check your work before publishing) was a third. Had a few more, but they didn't really apply to what the class was doing.
I did warn them before getting started that this was a volatile market. Yeah, right now, Amazon's on top. But a year or even a month down the road, that could all change. And that they shouldn't take my word on anything, and do their own research.
It was a good talk. Got to draw a fun analogy between self-publishing and the San Francisco gold rush. Basically, you've got an unending stream of prospectors coming in with hope and money to blow in pursuit of their dream, and the folks REALLY getting rich are usually the ones who are selling the buckets, the beer, laundry services, and other things. Just basically reminded them to realize that there are a lot of people wanting to make money off of their work, and trying to sell them things that they might not need, or could get way cheaper if they just looked around and took the right precautions. If they wanted to walk out of there with a pocket of gold, they had to be careful about what they bought along the way.
Not a public speaker, but I tried to keep it lively. Seemed to work, for the most part. Afterwards, the kids had a fair amount of questions. They seemed impressed by my sales numbers, and were eager to hear about marketing ebooks... Had to caveat most of the advice I gave them, that I hadn't yet done a lot of the methods I told them about due to the work and time involved, but that I knew many offers who swore by'em, and research indicated that they were good methods.
They probably will go with Amazon, or at least take a harder look at it, and that shouldn't be a problem. It's a small community project type zine, that they usually don't even bother getting an ISBN for. Worst case, they'll be able to market it to their friends and families, and rake in 35% or 70% pure profit to help affray the costs of the print run. (Which goes through a local printer, and usually nets them a 20% profit.) Really the biggest obstacle is going to be learning the right format to get their stuff into a working .MOBI (I also passed on a recommendation for Calibre, though I've not used it myself. Between that and the file converter website in the toolkit, and the Amazon Kindle previewer, they should be good with time and practice.)
I tried to nudge them to take a look at Smashwords as a good alternative, but they weren't as interested there. Eh, fair enough.
It was a good 45 minute talk. Would've been an hour, but I hit some road construction on the way in. >.< Should've mapped a better route. Ah well, lesson learned if there's a next time.
I liked that.
I liked having the chance to talk with interested parties, pass on some experience and tips.
I may have to start looking into local events, finding panels to help with.
...
I probably need a lot more experience, though. Need to get more credentials, and more hands-on with some of the things I've learned about.
Well.
Only one way to fix that.
Back to writing!
Gooood afternoon AW!
Had a pretty spiffy day yesterday. Going to tell ya about it in a bit.
But first, the two month(ish) status check.
(Edited to reflect reports, and proper accounting for KENP)
The Thin Black Line Between Infernal and Divine went out on Kindle two months ago in July. It didn't go into the Kindle Select Program. It's sold 49 units since then, a few of those purchased from Great Britain, Denmark, Australia, and Canada. It has received 2 four-star reviews.
Keep an Ace In the Hole dropped a month ago. I put it in the Kindle Select program, and used 3 of the 5 available free days up front. It's netted 169 free downloads, and 344 KENP read. It's sold 43 copies so far It has recieved 7 reviews, 4 Four star, and 3 Five star.
All told, my efforts have cost me $0, and netted me $59-60.
Not bad for two months, that's about a buck a day.
If I were following pattern I'd be releasing something now... but the only thing I've got right now is my novel, and it's not done yet. Still need the final cover art, still need to finish the final draft, still need to okay that with my awesome volunteer editor. Time, time, time, no way around it.
Time and money. The novel's going to cost me money. We settled on the cover art price for $100, which is pretty fair for the awesome picture I'm getting and unambiguous rights. I'm going to get a custom ISBN through Createspace... The $10 option. As pointed out by folks above, and in other threads, I can always pick up a standard ISBN if I publish a new edition elsewhere.
Fortunately, it'll be a moot point for three months. Going by the exposure and reviews gained from choosing KS for "Ace", I should definitely enter the novel into Select right from the get-go. I'll use the opportunity to put "Thin Black Line" in there as well.
I need to learn how to do a package deal, book + PDF through Amazon. Is that even doable? Hrm.
All told though, things are humming along to plan. Finishing the novel and getting her rolling in Createspace will cost $110 plus the cost of a couple of early galleys to make sure that the formatting is correct. So my prior efforts with my smaller works has covered 50% of that cost, roughly. I have no doubt I'll make it back, if the pattern holds roughly the same.
Status: 85% Slower than I'd like, but progressing and within expectations.
Recommendation: Stay the course, Seiple!
Now then, on to my day!
So, a friend of mine's married to a local high school teacher. She runs the literature club there, and they put out a yearly journal. This year they've been looking at doing an e-book version, along with the print version.
My friend said "Hey, want to come in and tell them about your publishing experiences on Amazon?"
I said "Sounds fun, but I've only been doing this for a couple of months."
"Eh, it's more than they've done."
"Fair enough."
So I got to go in and meet with the club after school, and tell them about the research I'd done, and what I'd found, and what my experience had been like so far. Didn't present Amazon as the only option, also mentioned Nook Press, and Smashwords, and Lulu and the various pros and cons of each as I saw it. (There's others out there, I know, but I hadn't done much research on them and I admitted it.)
I gave them a toolkit, pretty much a bunch of URLs of the various useful and free websites and services that I'd used to get here. AbsoluteWrite was at the top of the list, natch. Critique Circle was a close second, and a free file conversion site (for making ebook files to check your work before publishing) was a third. Had a few more, but they didn't really apply to what the class was doing.
I did warn them before getting started that this was a volatile market. Yeah, right now, Amazon's on top. But a year or even a month down the road, that could all change. And that they shouldn't take my word on anything, and do their own research.
It was a good talk. Got to draw a fun analogy between self-publishing and the San Francisco gold rush. Basically, you've got an unending stream of prospectors coming in with hope and money to blow in pursuit of their dream, and the folks REALLY getting rich are usually the ones who are selling the buckets, the beer, laundry services, and other things. Just basically reminded them to realize that there are a lot of people wanting to make money off of their work, and trying to sell them things that they might not need, or could get way cheaper if they just looked around and took the right precautions. If they wanted to walk out of there with a pocket of gold, they had to be careful about what they bought along the way.
Not a public speaker, but I tried to keep it lively. Seemed to work, for the most part. Afterwards, the kids had a fair amount of questions. They seemed impressed by my sales numbers, and were eager to hear about marketing ebooks... Had to caveat most of the advice I gave them, that I hadn't yet done a lot of the methods I told them about due to the work and time involved, but that I knew many offers who swore by'em, and research indicated that they were good methods.
They probably will go with Amazon, or at least take a harder look at it, and that shouldn't be a problem. It's a small community project type zine, that they usually don't even bother getting an ISBN for. Worst case, they'll be able to market it to their friends and families, and rake in 35% or 70% pure profit to help affray the costs of the print run. (Which goes through a local printer, and usually nets them a 20% profit.) Really the biggest obstacle is going to be learning the right format to get their stuff into a working .MOBI (I also passed on a recommendation for Calibre, though I've not used it myself. Between that and the file converter website in the toolkit, and the Amazon Kindle previewer, they should be good with time and practice.)
I tried to nudge them to take a look at Smashwords as a good alternative, but they weren't as interested there. Eh, fair enough.
It was a good 45 minute talk. Would've been an hour, but I hit some road construction on the way in. >.< Should've mapped a better route. Ah well, lesson learned if there's a next time.
I liked that.
I liked having the chance to talk with interested parties, pass on some experience and tips.
I may have to start looking into local events, finding panels to help with.
...
I probably need a lot more experience, though. Need to get more credentials, and more hands-on with some of the things I've learned about.
Well.
Only one way to fix that.
Back to writing!
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